I also can't help thinking on this day of all the people I know who emigrated to this country and made it their own. Starting with my mother. This is a page from one of the many photo album/scrapbooks she kept throughout her life, and it contains just a few mementos of her voyage over to New York City from Germany in 1963.
Seeing this makes me think of the incredible price she and others like her paid to come here. And I'm not just talking cash. Can YOU imagine leaving all that you've ever known – your place of birth, your family, your friends, your way of life – to embark on a voyage to a place totally unknown to you except as an idea? That's unbelievably, mind-boggingly gutsy.
She's not the only person I know who did this.
To all of Moi's immigrant friends – from Germany and South Africa, Iran and Iraq, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Great Britain – I know this isn't the place where you were born, but I do so hope that it has become the place you call home.
8 comments:
grrrrherherhahahaha! great minds think alike!! i have jimi and a rappery for our birthday. Have a great day MOI!!!! guess what i did? went and filmed the big dog (formerly mr she) run in the peachtree road race. what do you wanna bet he will parlay that run into a day of being pampered since hes exhausted? grrrherhahaha
enjoy it!
jimi forever.
Hey, that's so awesome! The Peachtree rocks. I hope da Big Dog ran swift, ran well, and doesn't spend the rest of the day on the sofa. Sorry, that would be MOI.
Can't wait for the video.
In the meantime, enjoy this most excellent of days!
Word.
:-)
Great display from both you and K9!
Have a great day.
Now that's the way to start a party!!!
Raining like crazy here, so there's no fireworks. Jimi will just have to stand in for them!
Ho! BEAUtiful message, darlin'.
I hope we'uns never have to flee like so many others did....much harder to uproot and replant than to mind the good garden we been handed--ya takes mah meanin'? We MUST weed ourselves wif' vigilance.
HAPPY INdependence Day!
Yay! Now I can wish you a happy Independence Day on something other than a shoe-girly post!
Nifty visual. We had a sane immigration policy back then.
My grandfather came here at 13 years old because there was no food for him in Sicily.
He sent home money for the rest of his life.
Anyone that wants to come here and work like he did, to be an American and to serve his country and family...welcome aboard.
Liars, cheats, sneaks and Marxist/Communist asshats are not welcome.
Happy 4th.
Grandpa Harry came in here 1917from Hungary. I doubt he knew much English, if any. By 1926 he owned an apartment building and started a General Motors dealership.
My other grandpa's parents came here about 30 years earlier from Russia. Grandpa was a bookie, ran a clothing store (a front for the prior operation), and I think provided muscle for the NY Newspaper Union. Rumors were that he knew some of the Murder Inc. people in Brooklyn.
These days, I'd like to be an emigrant. I'd gladly sacrifice some liberty for security (sorry, Moi and iamnot). Yes, European-style socialism or even a touch of benevolent communalism would suit czar just fine. One of the great things about America is that everyone gets to vote. One of the problems about America is that everyone gets to vote. The idea that most of the people I see around me every day have equal input into who runs our country is more and more frightening. I want a leader (Dem or Repub or Libertarian or anything) who is a helluva lot smarter than I am and the people around me. Maybe I need a king or a queen. Or a morphine drip.
Sorry to say, there's not too much call for American editors in Scandinavia. And fedex international is too expensive.
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